Police Corruption

In a damning blow to its fight against drug traffickers, the Mexican government Monday acknowledged severe penetration of a top law enforcement agency by a vicious gang that may even have bought intelligence on U.S. operations from renegade employees. At least 35 officials and agents from an elite unit within the federal attorney general's office have been fired or arrested in an investigation that began July 31 following tips from an informer.

Millionaire businessman Don Haidl testified Wednesday that former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona intervened in the prosecution of Haidl's son in a high-profile sexual assault case "as a favor" but that the sheriff's efforts succeeded only in angering the district attorney. With Carona's blessing, Haidl testified, Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo met with Orange County Dist. Atty.

Prosecutors wrapped up testimony from their key witness on Thursday by playing secretly recorded conversations that they said capture former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona admitting he received cash payments from Newport Beach millionaire Don Haidl and plotted to cover it up. Haidl, on the witness stand for a fifth day, said Carona repeatedly tried to reassure him that the transactions would be untraceable.

A federal judge expressed growing frustration Wednesday at the plodding pace of defense lawyers in the corruption case against former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, saying he feared the criminal trial could continue past Christmas. As lawyers picked through secretly recorded conversations between Carona and a Newport Beach businessman who says he bribed the former sheriff, District Judge Andrew J.

A Newport Beach millionaire stepped delicately around questions Friday about whether he had illegally reimbursed political contributions to elected officials other than the donations he testified he had laundered during the first campaign of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona. Don Haidl was asked specifically about reimbursements to the campaigns of former Los Angeles Mayor and City Atty. James K.

A fiery political watchdog in Orange County testified Wednesday that she schooled former Sheriff Michael S. Carona on campaign finance laws during his first run for office and warned him to look out for laundered contributions aimed at circumventing the local donor limit of $1,000. Shirley Grindle, a former aeronautics engineer who has devoted her retirement to enforcing county campaign rules, said she sat down with Carona in her living room in Orange on Jan.

She sits every day at a defense table behind former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, occasionally twirling her short blond hair and looking bored. As Carona's longtime paramour, she emerged from the shadows of his life last year when she was indicted in the public corruption case against the former sheriff. Now, as they face trial together, days pass with hardly a mention of her name. And at times, even the judge seems to have forgotten she is in his courtroom.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday said his government was making strides against corruption but warned that graft remained a threat to the nation's efforts against crime. Calderon, speaking on International Anti-Corruption Day, said 11,500 public servants had been sanctioned for corruption since he took office in December 2006. Fines against them totaled more than $300 million, he said.

As the prosecution drew to a close Wednesday in the federal corruption trial of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, defense attorneys acknowledged they were scrambling to line up witnesses. The government's final witness, an FBI agent, took the stand minutes before court adjourned and will be back this morning as prosecutors wrap up nearly seven weeks of testimony. At day's end Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Atty.

A retired assistant sheriff testified Thursday that he did not recall the department releasing a drunk-driving defendant from jail at the request of Newport Beach millionaire Don Haidl, a key government witness who made the allegation in the corruption trial of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona. Kim Markuson was one of five witnesses called by attorneys Brian A.